The Bride Song

THE BRIDE’S SONG Reaching the market place My waist-bead snaps My wrapper unties Take the beads to my husband’s mother This wrapper I must tie again For life’s jewel must be hidden Not left to the wishful stare Of a watchful world Baba, thank you to day For the kindnesses of many years Going am I now to my husband The son of Ajeyemi whose yams Wrestle heaps to the ground Owner of the powerful machete Whose maize drills the molars My calabash tray will give way Coming back from his farm. Like seasoned warriors The son of warrior behind Amule The son of brave one in dense of Oloogun I go now To the house of a man Who has yams in his barn And children between his grains A solid man who pins you down With a ***** stronger than an iron bar Fresh from the fertile forge. I go now And the moon is witness to my leaving Before this moon bears the first cock My belly would be round Like ground- mother’s laden bound Tell husband’s mother I will take full throated cock When the first night’s sheet glows With the virtue of many years Children playing in the moonlight Are the dreams of a maiden’s womb Child is honour, child is gold The bouncing seed of tomorrow’s harvest May my back never know The pain of the mat. By Ajeyemi Wasiu Ajewumi. ©2017